All posts by Philip Shaffer

I’ve been running rockbox on my Fuze since late 2010 (first time I /joined #rockbox on freenode was Fri Oct 1 2010.

Go to rockbox.org, locate your player make and model, download the rockbox manual for your player, read through the manual, download the install utility http://www.rockbox.org/download/ and you’ll get some basic themes. you can select other themes from rockbox.org.

Rockbox on my devices supports sdhc cards up to 32GB along with internal storage. I used fdisk to partition the card and mkfs to put a vfat filesystem on the card.

Boot into the stock firmware and put the Sansa device into usb|msc mode, mount the device and run the installer. The default mode is mtp, and I have never tried to access either device in mtp mode, only usb|msc mode. The installer is a graphical application. The installer handles everything, all you need to know is where the device is mounted. The installer puts a bootloader and the rockbox firmware on the device. When you power on the device, you always have the option to boot into rockbox or boot into the stock firmware.

I got a Clip Zip as an emergency backup player: sooner or later, I expect the Fuze to fail (nothing electronic lasts forever).

Many additional features are available in rockbox compared with the stock firmware: file manipulation and listing, a database is created of all the files, so you can select what file to listen to by selecting a file from the file listing or selecting using the database listing.

The Fuze Clip Zip with rockbox has fewer features than the Fuze. The Fuze uses a wheel with center button (select) while the Clip Zip used a north-south-east-west selector plus center button. My muscle memory for navigating and selecting files or features, is better with the Fuze.

The Fuze Clip Zip uses the center select button for a lot more than the Fuze, and different actions are triggered by short, medium and long select presses.

Both devices use proprietary cables for data transfer and battery recharging. Battery life seems about the same for both devices: I’ll start an eight hour work shift with 100% battery and by the end of the shift, having listened for 5 or 6 hours, I’ll be at maybe 40%.

The Fuze sometimes resets when copying a file and I have to wait for the process to stop, unmount and remount the device. Once a month (or less often) my machine crashes and I have to do a hard reboot: maybe a bad cable, wrapped|folded too many times?

I’ve only listened to .mp3 or .ogg files on both devices. There may be some way to watch videos, but I’ve never tried.

There may be a way rockbox can increase the audio playback tempo per file, but I’ve not looked into doing that. (Increasing the playback without altering the voices so they sound like Mickey Mouse.)

5150 Talks about creating an IRC Channel
Registering a Freenode.Net IRC channel and setting up operators

• Establish your new Freenode channel
• Freeenode was originally set up to support development projects and that is still reflected in their mission statement.
• To register a channel, you must have a registered nick
• Channel naming official (primary) channels start with a single hash. Secondary, unofficial channel names start with two hashes. Say we wanted to create a sub channel to discuss the design of the web page, we might call it ##LinuxLUGCastWordpress
• Check the availabilty of the the channel you want to register. Freenode says to use /msg ChanServ info #MyNewChannel , but that command never returned anything for me, even with channels I knew existed. Do worry, ChanServ won’t let you register a channel name (case insensitive) that already exits.
• All you have to do to create a channel is to join it /join #MyNewChannel Note, you re automatically set as admin for this channel. Of course, if you don’t register the channel (or hold it open with a bot), it will disappear as soon as all users leave.
• Now register your channel /msg ChanServ register #MyNewChannel
• Set yourself up as administrator (Operator, or op) for your channel
• But I’m already an op since I created the channel, you say. Not so much I’m afraid. Leave the channel and come back, see, you are no longer OP.
• You are not an OP but you are the Founder, which gives you right to make people, including youself, OPs
• /msg ChanServ OP #MyNewChannel MyNick
• If you want to set up your fellow OPs at this point use /msg ChanServ OP #MyNewChannel OtherOpNick
• Set operator defaults for yourself and your fellow operators
• But wait a minute, I’m still not an OP! If you are using a GUI IRCmanager, like XChat, if you right click on your name you will find a menu item like “Operator Actions”, and under that “Give Ops” and “Take Ops”. You can elevate yourself here, and you can do the same for the others you made OPs (though they won’t be able to do it for themselves yet).
• You set operator defaults with the FLAGS command. The +O arguement means the user will always join the channel as an OP, +o joins them as a regular user with the option to elevate themselves, i.e:
• You always want to join the channel as an OP, issue: /msg ChanServ FLAGS #MyNewChannel MyNick +O
• If you want the other OP you created to join a a regular user with the power to make themselves an OP, issue: /msg ChanServ FLAGS #MyNewChannel OtherOpNick +o